Craig James calls WSU coach Mike Leach a ‘bully’ in campaign ad

Craig James, the former NFL player and sportscaster whose son was at the middle of the Mike Leach controversy at Texas Tech, is throwing off his gloves in his foundering bid for a seat in the U.S. Senate.

Mike Leach is introduced as WSU's new football coach on Dec. 6, 2011, in Pullman. (WSU photo)

Leach, now head football coach at Washington State, is a “bully,” James says in a new TV commercial.

“We supported our son against a bully, bottom line,” James says in the ad, embedded below. “You can’t do what Mike Leach did to our son and get away with it. Not in the United States of America.”

In 2009, Texas Tech suspended then-coach Leach after he allegedly ordered James’ son, Adam, to spend football practice standing in an electrical shed because he had suffered a concussion. Leach appealed the suspension, saying there was no locked shed and that he’d merely ordered Adam James to be taken “out of the light.”

Despite appealing his suspension, Leach was soon fired — a decision likely influenced by other incidents in which Leach clashed with Texas Tech administration. He spent a couple years out of the limelight before WSU hired him in December 2011 to replace Paul Wulff as head coach of the Cougars.

Craig James, meanwhile, is now running for U.S. Senate in Texas. He’s not doing well in the polls.

In the ad, posted to YouTube on Tuesday, James’ daughter Jessica asks him to address the Leach controversy. “Some people believe that will hurt your candidacy in West Texas,” she says. “How do you feel about that?”

James basically says he doesn’t care about Leach supporters. He doesn’t want the vote of people who wouldn’t support their own children, he says … and he’s got a fair point.

Then his grammar goes down the drain — but now I’m just nitpicking. Anyway, you can watch the video below.